Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-09-23
SMOKING.
A New York Physician Discusses the
Subject" Tobacco Heart"

A New York Physician Discusses the
Subject. Tobacco Heart"
NV. NJ Butler, NJ D., in Epoch
| suppose that the least harmful method
of smoking is the use of clean pipe with
mild tobacco pipe that has not alb
sorbed the nicotine. The harmfulness of a
pipe comes from its having absorbed a
great quantity of nicotine, so that You are
constantly taking more or less of it into
the system. The cigar would come next
in favor. OF course the stronger a pipe is
the more nicotine there is in it, and the
more nicotine you have the greater is the
chance of injuring your system. The chief
constituents of tobacco smoke are water,
| carbonic acid, carbonic oxide in state of
gas, and nicotine.
When a man smokes too much the ex-
! cess produces redress and irritation of the
stomach, and the membrane secretes irreg-
ularly and does not produce the due
amount of gastric fluid. Hence digestion
is interfered with.
That is the first phase. After awhile
| the stomach gets into such condition
that it tolerates this state of existence, so
that there is not the same nausea produced
in an old smoker that we find in Young
smoker.
Whether smoking is good for man de-
ponds on his organization. | do not think
that smoking is ever really beneficial for a
nervous man. Then, again, much depends
on how much man smokes, and when he
smokes There are certain men who, when
they are tired, when their nervous system
has.been on too great strain, will smoke
one or two cigars, they will become quiet.
The nervous man should not smoke at all.
Phlegmatic persons would be least liable to
be harmed.
1t depends on how much You smoke as
| to whether you will become harmed by the
practice. The people who are injured by
| tobacco are those who smoke too much
those who smoke on an empty stomach and
| those who use strong tobacco But if
man only smoked in moderation-say two
or three cigars a day--he would not stand
much chance of being injured very Sc
riously. You cannot lay down 4 rule how
much a man shall smoke. Some men are
more susceptible to the effects of tobacco
than others. When smoking makes man
| feel bad or nervous, he may consider that
he has received notice to quit 4 man
might smoke cigar after heavy dinner,
and feel quieted by it. but if he continued
| smoking he would excite the nervous svs-
TEN so that he could not sleep all night
And there are great many people who
cannot smoke at all at night without inter-
fering with sleep.
Some men get the habit of smoking so
fixed that they smoke constantly. The
tobacco habit is just as hard to break as
| the alcohol habit | know man who dis
| continued smoking for eight years, and at
| the end of that time he wanted to smoke
as badly as he did at first. When the to-
bacco habit is once firmly formed a man
seldom loses his taste for the weed"
The disease known as the tobacco
! heart" which is caused by excessive smok-
ing, may be described as a weak action of
the heart. In a certain disease of the
hesrt produced by smoking the symptoms
are retro-sternal pains, with extreme an
guish, paleness of face, cold sweat, faint
ness, deep and signing respiration and
slowness Of the pulse, which is also inter
mittent. have seen a case where a mans
ordinary pulse was 10 simply from ex-
cessive smoking. Eventually the mans
nervous system broke down entirely.
Then there is the smokers throat.
That consists of an irritable state of the
iiiuNOtS liiSlAtbAsliiS il lllC Ol the
throat redness, dryness and enlargement
of the tonsils, which render swallowing
painful This is more often produced by
cigars than pipes, and is usually cured if
the smoker stops smoking.
Writers cramp, steel-pen palsy, tele-
graphers' cramp and pianists' cramp are
tobacco. Smoking immoderately will
III lfi,,rr - 4 10 l. 1.
| as we see III old age.
will increase the throat trouble if he
smokes excessively The man with
cough is sure to be more distressed in
room full of tobacco smoke. While it is
questionable whether the smoking habit
produces any disease of the lungs in itself,
after the disease has once begun there is
no doubt that tobacco smoke acts as an
irritant..
General Grant died of cancer of the
throat, but it is very questionable whether
the disease was produced by smoking
that remains TO he proven.
have never seen any man who smoked
enough to warrant being sent to an insane
asylum. | have seen one case of sub-acute
mania that was said to have been produced
by tobacco, but | question the statement
The patient did use great deal of tobac-
co, but many men outside of insane
asylums use much of it.
Cigarette smoking is, by all odds, the
most pernicions of tobacco habits. because
the cigarette smokers inhale large guam
tity of tobacco smoke. Nothing too Sc
we're can be said against boys smoking ci-
garettes. Cigarette smoking interferes
with nutrition. Boys who are persistent
cigarette smokers are apt 10 be dwarfed
and stunted in their growth. They do not
grow as they should. and their nervous
system is not properly developed Not
onsy is there arsenic in the paper used.
but there are often foreign substances in
the tobacco. If they viii smoke cigarettes,
the least harmful ones are the tobacco"
cigarettes. a cigarette smoker is generally
pale, and has an air as if lacking rntrition.
| think 4 law should be passed prohibiting
the sale of cigarettes 10 BOYS.
Only lately ! read an item IN a nssyspa-
per to the effect that CUT eff twenty ySunr
men who competed for q West Point ca
detship al Westfeld, Mass, ten we're re-
jected by the physicians because they had |
" the tobacco heart" brought on by cigar
cite smoking. They were unfit for West .
Point service.
Cigarette smoking is always injurious. |
1t Is true that the French. the Cubans,
the Spaniards and Aiexicans are great
cigarette smokers, but they are very nerv-
Gus people. Sill, do not think il Injuries
them as much as it does Americans.